Adding walls

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Learn modeling basics and how to add walls to your building plans with the de-facto standard tool for architecture and design in this Revit Architecture 2015 online tutorial. You'll navigate the basic features of the wall command and how to create simple walls. You'll also find the settings that walls can interact with.

Walls are perhaps the most basic component of any building project.Certainly, they are one of the first objectsthat you'll want to master when you're learning Revit.Walls have many settings that we can interactwith, and in this movie we'll take a lookat the basic features of the wall commandand get started by just creating some simple walls.So, on the Architecture tab we have our wall command and it's right here.It also has a keyboard shortcut, W+A, so ifyou like, you can just type the letters W+A.If you click the drop down make sure you're choosing Wall Architectural.Okay, so any of those methods will do the trick.

And when I run the command it takes me to the Modify Place Wall tab.Now this is a context tab, we talked about this in a previous movie,the left-hand side of the Modify tab is the standard, consistent set of commands.And the right-hand side in this case has a draw panel with several shapes.Let's start by looking at some of those shapes.Now the first one, the default, is just the line shape.If you look at the very bottom left-hand corner of the screen, there'sa prompt on the status bar that says, click to enter wall start point.

So all we have to do is click somewhereon screen to place the first point of the wall.Now, if you don't move the mouse at all, it'll immediatelygo to a new prompt that will say, Enter Wall Endpoint.If you start moving the mouse, you might get a different prompt.Something like Horizontal, in this case,because I'm snapping horizontal or perhaps vertical.If you're at an angle that isn't one ofthe preset angles, then it'll say the standard prompt.So sometimes it just takes moving themouse around and reading through the differentprompts, and then you can decide where you actually want that second point to go.

And I can click right there.Now at this point, if I only wanted asingle wall, I could cancel out of the command.There's two ways that I could do that.I can use my Escape key, or I can click on the Modify Tool.Now the Modify Tool cancels all the way out of the command.You see how the wall command is no longer active.If I use the Escape key method, then a single Escape willcancel the current draw mode, but it will stay in the command.Notice how it still says Place Wall.If I press Escape a second time, then it cancels all the way out.

Now, what that's really doing is, if I draw one more straightline wall, is it's taking advantage of this chain feature right here.The default behavior of the wall command when you'rein the line draw mode is to be chain.So this simply means that you can draw more thanone wall, connected end to end with the previous wall.If I press Escape one time, it's simply breaking the chainso that I can start drawing a new chain of walls.And that's really all that means.

Now, we can also change shape.So, we don't have to draw just simple straight lines.We can draw rectangles or polygons.Rectangle's pretty straightforward.It just requires two opposite corners.So we can simply click any two points, and that'll give us a rectangle.With polygons, we can do inscribed or circumscribed.That just means, do you want to draw it at the vertex, or the face.When you click it, it will list the number of sides here on the options bar.So the default is this hexagon shape.Or I could change the number of sides to anything I want.

If I want to draw a square, I can draw a square.Or a pentagon, or really any shape.We can draw a circle.Now if you draw a circle, I'm going to Escape out ofhere a couple times, cancel all the way out of the command.Notice that the circle is actually in two pieces.So really what a circle does is it justdraws two arcs that are connected to one another.Let me go back to the wall command or type W-A and we have a variety of arcs,I'm not going to look at every one, but Iam going to to look at this one really quickly because.

This is actually a start end radius arch.And in many draw programs there is a similartype of arc command, like a three point arc.And often you draw along the curve.But here in Revit, if we follow theprompts, it says click to enter wall start point.I'll do that.And then it says, enter arc wall end point.So we actually want to draw the opposite end of the arc.And then as you can see we're drawing the radius of the arc next.Okay, so just pay really close attention to that.Takes a little practice at first.

And then notice that chain works here as well.So we can do kind of neat stuff like this.If I move, you see how it actually snaps to the tangent?And I can make these nice, smooth curves, drawing several continuous arcs if I like.So let me Escape out of there.Now I want to kind of clean things up a little bit here, so I'mgoing to Escape all the way out of the command, zoom out just a touch.Select all of these walls that I've drawn.But be careful because if you look atmy ribbon right now it says modify multi-select.So, this tells me that I've actually got more than walls selected.

I have several objects selected.So, I'm going to go to my Filter button, andin fact I also have elevations and views selected.And I don't want those selected, so I'm going to uncheckboth of those, make sure I have only walls selected.Click OK.And then I'll press the Delete key on the keyboard to delete those walls.I'm going to return to the wall command, click the button or type W+A.And let's take a look at the properties next.Now, I'm going to talk about location in a future movie.Let's take a look at the level constraints here.

There's a base constraint and this establishes the lower edge of the wall.Now, it defaults to level one because, as you can see down hereon the project browser, we are currently in the level one floor plan.So that's pretty logical, that that's where the wall would start drawing from.Now, we also have levels two, three, and roof.So over here, under top constraint, we can actually attach thetop edge of the wall to any one of those levels.So I'm going to attach it to the level two.And I'll just draw a small wall right there.

I'm going to press Escape one time.Change this to up two level three.Draw a second wall.Escape again.And then one more time, up two level roof.Now, if I Escape all the way out of that command,scroll down in the project browser, and double-click the south elevation, letme just zoom in just a little here so that we canread the levels over here, you can see my levels indicated here.This is not a one time operation that we just did there.What we've have actually assigned is a constraint.

So, the top edge of this wall is constrained to thislevel, the top level of this wall is constrained to this level.If one of these levels were to move, and I'm just goingto take level three here and just drag it manually with the mouse.You can see that the top edge of that wall follows along with that.So, this is a really powerful feature inthe software that as your design changes over time,you can make sure that all of the wallsthat are associated with a particular level move accordingly.That can be a very powerful way to work and can be quite a time saver.

Alright, so let me return to level one, andlet's work at one last setting here for the walls.Go back to the Architecture tab, click on the wall tool again,and at the top of the properties palette we have our type selector.I'm going to open that up, and I'm going to scroll to the top of the list.Now here it says, Basic Wall, generic eight inch.Basic Wall is in this grey bar here, that's the name of the family.And then generic eight inch is a little fartherdown on the list, right here, generic eight inch.That's the type name.

You can see here that the basic wall has lots of types.We have a whole variety here.We have brick and CMU walls, we have generic walls, we have stud walls.So what would happen if I chose one of these other types of walls.Like maybe this brick on CMU.And I'm going to draw that.Let me roll my wheel here and zoom in just a touch.All we really see is that that wall is a little bit thicker.So that tells us that something is different, but what I actually wantto see is the makeup of that wall, the construction, the internal components.If you look down here at the bottom ofthe screen, this our View Control Bar down here.

There's several little icons, the scale and several other things.There's this little white square here.And if I click on it, it says coarse, medium and fine.If I go to either medium or fine level ofdetail, it will show me the internal structure of that wall.So coarse only shows the outlines, but the mediumand fine, let's zoom in just a little bit more.That starts to show me how that wall is constructed.So now if we choose some of these other wall types, and draw them, youcan see that they vary from one anotherin their composition, in what they're made of.

So there's a lot of different settings thatwe can interact with as we're drawing walls.We have our shapes up on the modified tab, and we have a variety of settings tocontrol the height and the composition of the wall,on both the Type Selector and the Properties Palette.So I encourage you to spend a little bit more timein this file, playing around, and getting comfortable with how wallswork, because as we said at the start of the movie,walls are really the most basic component of any Revit project.

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Author

Released

6/4/2014

Build your Revit skills from the ground up. In this course, Paul F. Aubin teaches you the core building information modeling (BIM) techniques you need to complete solid architectural projects in Revit 2015. First, get comfortable with the Revit environment, and learn to set up a project and add the grids, levels, and dimensions that will anchor your design. Then get to modeling: adding walls, doors, and windows; creating and mirroring groups; linking to external assets and DWG files; and working with floors, roofs, and ceilings. Paul also shows advanced techniques for modeling stairs, complex walls, and partially obscured building elements, as well as adding rooms and solid geometry. Finally, discover how to annotate your drawing so all the components are perfectly understood, and learn how to output sheets to DWF, PDF, or AutoCAD.

Topics include:

What is BIM?

Understanding Revit element hierarchy

Navigating views

Creating a new project from a template

Adding walls, doors, and windows

Adding plumbing fixtures and other components

Linking AutoCAD DWG files

Rotating and aligning Revit links

Working with footprint and extrusion roofs

Adding openings

Adding railings and extensions to stairs

Creating stacked and curtain walls

Hiding and isolating objects

Adding rooms

Creating schedule views and tags

Adding text and dimensions

Creating new families

Using reference planes, parameters, and constraints

Plotting and creating a PDF

Skill Level Beginner

11h 4m

Duration

1,146,504

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Q: Which versions of Revit should I use with this course?

A: This course is written for users of Revit Architecture 2015 and Revit LT 2015. Because Revit LT does not have all of the same features as Revit Architecture, some movies in this course will not be relevant for Revit LT. Additionally, there are some topics that are relevant in both versions, but the button layout or location of those tools are different. In those cases, the features and procedures for Revit Architecture are shown in the course.

Q: Which content in this course is different or not relevant for Revit LT?

A:

Chapter 2 – Accessing Revit Options (There are some slight variations in the option dialog in LT. Not all options shown are available in LT.)

Chapter 3 – Accessing a multiuser project using worksharing (The worksharing feature is not available in LT.)

Chapter 4 – Using modify tools (LT has a slightly different ribbon layout, but most tools covered should work the same. Some buttons will be located in slightly different spots.)

Chapter 5 – Establishing shared coordinates (The shared coordinates feature is not available in LT.)

Chapter 6 – Using the shape editing tools to create a flat roof (The shape editing tools are not available in LT.)

Chapter 7 – All movies (Sketch-based stairs are not available in LT. LT only has component-based stairs.)